


You Kissed Me into Ruins

by jusrecht



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-03
Updated: 2010-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 15:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2073183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jusrecht/pseuds/jusrecht





	You Kissed Me into Ruins

  
There was, Dino reflected as he pushed the heavy front door open, certain inevitability about this situation.  
  
For one, he had been raised to love (in God’s light, in the shine of His benevolence—all good things which still mattered). That he had later been taught to kill did not rob him of the seed sowed deep in the soil of his character. To be a priest-hunter and rid the world of preying creatures of the night was his chief duty, preordained and imperative, but an existence was not defined by duty alone. A sword did not forget the arm which swung it, a matter of flesh and blood still.  
  
Inside, his footsteps echoed on polished marble floor. The mute emptiness of the manse swallowed him, like the beginning of a black void. A series of dark halls and arced corridors opened up before him, all pristine and cold without a breath of life. A few windows had their curtains drawn back, and Dino made his journey from one patch of light to another, watching motes of dust glimmer in sun-sliced air.  
  
To him, this house was a foreign one, but a calling deeper than any well-preserved memory guided his feet. The black, heavy robe of his order rustled with each sure pace, at once a burden, a privilege, and a shackle. He took a left turn when the flight of stairs ended on the third floor, toward a door which stood waiting at the end of the long corridor. Such testimony to privacy and seclusion made him smile—how like _Kyouya._  
  
Dino allowed himself no pause. With a reluctant moan, the door yielded to his touch and a different chill settled deep in the marrow of his bones. The air was thick and still within, as if a heavy cloak of velvet had had the chamber under its shroud. All too aware of the near sacrosanct silence, he took one cautious step in, eyes intent on the curtained bed which seemed to dominate the room with its sheer presence.  
  
Despite his intrusion, the lone figure on the bed did not stir.  
  
A paralysing fear gripped his heart as the worst of thousand suppositions took root in his mind. Waiving caution for haste, he quickly approached the bed, noticing with each step the changes which had ravaged Hibari’s appearance since their last ‘spar’ but two months ago. The lithe, powerful form which had sent blow after blow with a pair of tonfa and lethal speed no longer exuded any such strength. Even the ominous air of deadliness, normally his most loyal, ever-present servant, was today absent.  
  
He was _fading._  
  
Dino bit the inside of his lips. A strange sort of sadness, silent and fathomless as a sea long dead, cut a swath on the surface of his perception. The trickle of guilt came slow—heavy, numbing. He barely even reacted when a pair of eyes found him in the chamber’s gloom, effortlessly dark against the paleness of an emaciated face  
  
“Is this a case of charity, Cavallone?” A subtle quirk of deathly white lips. Even Hibari’s voice was now mere spectre of what it had been, not even worthy of a trailing echo.  
  
Dino forced a smile to soften the tension around his mouth. “I am not nearly that presumptuous.”  
  
“Lies ill-suit an inferior creature like you,” the rejoinder was a coarse murmur where it would have been a venomous hiss, once upon a time. “You know as well as I do, presumptions run thick in your blood.”  
  
“I wonder how you could possibly know.”  
  
The comment served its purpose. As if a mask had been brusquely ripped off of Hibari’s face, the hint of tolerance vanished. For one breathtaking moment, Dino recognised the vestigial traces of what had made Hibari Kyouya an archduke and one of the most feared vampires in existence.  
  
“Get out.”  
  
Sadly, the order still lacked the necessary verve to render it unassailable. Dino sat down on the edge of the bed instead, inviting a sharp glare to his direction.  
  
“Don’t be so stubborn, Kyouya.”  
  
A familiar sneer answered. “More presumptions.”  
  
“I know of your lore enough,” Dino continued, dismissing the comment for belligerence. “For one of your class, there is only one reason why this is happening.”  
  
“And what, exactly, is happening, _Padre_?”  
  
This, too, was familiar. The mark of his profession, at the tip of a vampire’s tongue, always became a taunt. Dino sighed, disappointed but by no means deterred, and reached inside his robe for a ceremonial dagger he always kept about his person. The bejewelled handle was cool to his touch and the blade, its sharpness rendered harmless by a leather sheath, smoothly reflected what little light slipping in from the closed window once freed. A trustworthy companion since the beginning of his duty, it had sliced the jugulars of countless vampires—but now, for once, he aimed its sure deadliness to the palm of his own hand.  
  
With terrifying ease, the tip punctured his skin; redness bloomed, thickly pooling in the valley of crisscrossed lines. Hibari’s angry snarl was threaded with tinges of agony as the metallic smell assaulted his senses, sharp still despite his weakened state. Hunger had eaten away at him for a long time.  
  
And yet his lips remained sealed, fiercely defiant. For Hibari Kyouya, stubbornness worked in reverse; there was nothing which quite buttressed his determination more than impossible odds. He thrived on challenges, not unlike roses on a bed of corpses. Against this impossible fortress, Dino raised the wounded hand and wet his lips with his own blood. The taste made him cringe, but such minuscule reaction was lost on Kyouya, who was so filled by hunger’s screams to the brim he was scarcely aware of anything else.  
  
“If you think to tempt me–” he rasped, but Dino was quick enough to spare him the pain of talking—and lies at that.  
  
“I can think only of _you_ , not tempting you.” The words now poured freely from his mouth, confession and accusation both. He did not think that he had ever been more honest, the secrets of his heart more bared. “You’ve blinded me, Kyouya. You’ve struck me deaf and cut words from my tongue, words which should have been able to bind you to the earth and put an end to this curse. But none of these would matter, if you did not happen to _care_.”  
  
“I do not.”  
  
Dino smiled, a thin, tolerant smile to indulge a child’s wilful attempt at falsehood. “Look into the mirror. You are now little more than a wraith,” he murmured, voice caught in his throat for not even the rich material of Kyouya’s clothes could hide the wasting body hidden beneath. The sight made his heart ache. Dino took the lifeless hand, small and brittle in the cradle of his fingers, and pressed his lips on the unresponsive palm.  
  
Upon first contact, it began to beat with the vibrant coldness which was a vampire’s equivalence of life. A shudder in that length of arm chased away any doubt which might still gnaw at his logics, and yet this affirmation brought him very little satisfaction, if any. The cage was now complete, all solid, diamond-hard wires trapping them within. Reborn’s words echoed in his mind, clinical even as vestiges—there was only one worse defeat to these creatures than death, and it was to never be able to crave another blood, for only one would do.  
  
Attachment was a deadly thing, a poison to a heart so blackened and dead.  
  
“Mirror,” still Kyouya scoffed, resisting, not for one moment acknowledging their position. “And you claimed to know of my lore.”  
  
“But I do.”  
  
Dino unfurled his clenched, blood-smeared fist and brought the tip of his forefinger to Kyouya’s lips—just a hint, a taste. The reaction was instantaneous. Phantom strength surged inside the frail body and with a rustle of silk, Kyouya lunged at him, causing them both to topple down onto the marble floor. The sharpness of his teeth, when it came, broke the skin on Dino’s neck with effortlessness born of too much practice.  
  
The pain was a strange one, fleeting and excruciating for one moment before a deep calm followed, swiftly spreading. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before and the word which came to his mind was _union_. A thoroughly unsuitable name for such an act, he mused, the thought heavy and dragging.  
  
The ritual was by no means as tranquil for Kyouya. He drank greedily, with single-minded force which blinded him to anything else but the progress of his satiation. His fingers, vengeful and brutal, clawed at the rosary round Dino’s neck, scattering onyx on marble as it was snapped clean. The low, rumbling sound in his throat, the warm slick feel of his tongue, made Dino shiver, reminiscent of the first lick of desire he had nearly forgotten. The mere idea of it would have alarmed him, if not for the thick veil which seemed to envelop his mind in its cocoon.  
  
Kyouya stiffened when Dino brought one hand to tangle in soft black hair, but did not stop, unable to. Strange that a being without a heart should be ruled by degrees of attachment—yet another example where God played His ironies. And a vampire who had been so bound had no choice but to turn the mortal into one of their kind, or risk an even greater curse. The undying hunger killed but did not; it steadily robbed until one became less and less and less, with no end in sight.  
  
Only those who played the roles of hunters, ordained and consecrated, were exempt from the threat to become one of the undead. And yet from this privilege, a relief at the surface, sprang another curse. One day he would die, a like fate shared by all humans, and should Kyouya still be dependent of him even then…  
  
One could, perhaps, call it perfect as an end; two as one, a mutual vow of eternity—poetic, exquisite, the sort of story sung in songs and immortalised in verses. Dino, however, knew better than to treat symbolism as anything more than simply that: _symbolism_. Fated or not, he had no intention to die now.  
  
“Kyouya…”  
  
The vampire’s first answer was a growl, and then his teeth sank even deeper. Dino winced in pain, fingers clenching in Kyouya’s hair, but that movement did not ail. He felt sharp nails digging into his shoulders, past layers of clothing to pierce naked skin, willing enough to maim. Fear paralysed him for a moment, but before he could act, Kyouya had withdrawn; his eyes, now a deep, startling red, peered down at him, his bloodied teeth bared in a clear sign of resentment.  
  
For a long time, neither spoke. Dino had to wonder how he could have fallen for this creature, so devoid of compassion or any human quality. And yet the truth remained; what he felt had gone beyond any acceptable measure of fascination, far enough to escape any name or label. (At least, he thought, there was still some relief in that unknown.)  
  
“If it’s any consolation,” he said at last, softer than it could have been, “I too am deeply entangled in your vines.”  
  
“Don't put me in your level,” Hibari hissed, his voice once more regaining the dark, rich quality which had so bewitched Dino since their first encounter. “You are an herbivore. Nothing important matters to you.”  
  
He feigned surprise to cover hurt. “You surprise me, Kyouya. I would have never guessed you for one to care about appearances.”  
  
“I _don’t_.”  
  
Curiously, Dino recognised this, even among myriads of lies which constantly spilled from the vampire’s mouth, as a gem of truth. It was surprisingly easy to understand if he had a mind to. His presence was a threat not to Kyouya’s appearance, but to his sense of self—by far his most important thing. He had been invulnerable, rivalled by none. The possibility of anyone affecting him in any manner simply had never entered his horizon.  
  
It was a strangely endearing thought. Dino caressed the arrogant head once, lovingly despite the hiss it provoked, and then dropped his hand. “Think of it this way. You have until my last of days to do away with any vexing attachment. There is surely enough number of years between now and then to see to the purge.”  
  
Kyouya made a dismissive sound through his nose. “I hardly need that lengthy period,” he declared and rose to his feet, grace and power once more evident.  
  
Dino smiled faintly, his consciousness already drifting. “If you say so, _amato_.”  
  
And then he slept.  
  
  
—  
  
  
 _When he opened his eyes to the swelling shadows of the night, he discovered Kyouya curled closely to his side, eyes closed as if in a deep slumber. All around them, the black beads of a broken rosary lay in waste._  
  
In the silence, he sought for a likely happy ending for this equation, and found none.  
  
  


**_End  
_ **


End file.
